In any walk of life, it is always hard to say goodbye to an old, trusted friend. Pittsburgh Pirates fans know this feeling all too well.
For years Pittsburgh Pirates fans have seen favorites come and go. Barry Bonds. Brian Giles. Jason Bay. Russell Martin.
Usually, those partings are accompanied by guttural pangs of angst. But that was not the case when Melancon was traded to the Washington Nationals last summer. Perhaps that was because fans knew a trade involving one of the game’s top closers inevitable, allowing for a period of time to brace themselves.
Felipe Rivero also gave fans reasons to not-so-grudgingly accept the loss of Melancon. After an intriguing two months with the club last season, how will the young fireballer’s place with the Pittsburgh Pirates evolve in 2017?
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More Than Just a Changeup
Perhaps you’ve heard, but Rivero has a well-developed changeup.
Mike Petriello of MLB.com recently delved into the best “put-away” pitches across all of baseball, and Rivero’s change was deemed the best in terms of whiff rate. Indeed, Rivero’s 58.3 percent swing and miss rate was not only the best swinging strike rate for changeups, but also held court as the second-best single whiff rate pitch in baseball, second only to Ken Giles‘ slider (62.2 percent).
If it’s the changeup that serves as the sizzle, however, his considerable four-seam fastball still has a ways to go before we can consider it to be the steak.
The heat came out 61.88 percent of the time for Rivero in 2016 – both with the Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates – and had an average velocity of 96.71 mph. Able to reach as high as 101 mph, Rivero’s fastball should serve as the perfect complement to his change, but it only garnered a 10.29 swinging strike percentage in 2016.
Rivero has one of the fastest change ups in baseball, but the separation between his heat and the softer stuff was just a tick over eight miles per hour in 2016. The sweeping nature of his changeup goes a long way towards its effectiveness, but tinkering with his fastball location – and his location overall – can compensate for any separation anxiety.
Location Location Location
When the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Rivero, Ray Searage gradually had the young-left hander drop his slider usage to 5.88 percent in the season’s last days – down from a high water mark of 22.45 percent usage in May with the Nationals.
Though Rivero’s changeup has that aforementioned sweeping action to the plate, the lack of a true breaking pitch leaves Rivero with an overabundant reliance on location in addition to deception.
But if we look at where Rivero’s four-seamers are landing, we can see a clear path to better effectiveness.
Image and data courtesy of Statcast
These three strike zone maps show us Rivero’s entire 2016 season of four-seam fastballs, as well as breakouts of this time with the Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates.
At first glance, not much seems different between the lefty’s two team tenures. Both show a tendency to land in the same two zones. Though these are obviously outside of the strike zone, when considering that Rivero became a two-pitch pitcher with Pittsburgh, this isn’t so undesirable. Focusing on a fastball/changeup combination will require that Rivero change eye levels of hitters frequently, even if that means something high or low, inside or outside of the zone.
However, if Rivero, Searage, Francisco Cervelli et. al., were to tinker with the young hurler’s approach in certain pitch counts, it could do wonders.
Attacking More at Critical Points in the At-Bat
No pitcher – starter or reliever – wants to get behind at any point in an at-bat. This is Baseball 101.
But the art of an at-bat is often found in the “dogfight” counts. This is why you hear so many pitching coaches and managers talk about the 1-1 count.
If there was on wart in Rivero’s season – and specifically his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates – it is his susceptibility to the walk. Rivero has always had a Jekyll-and-Hyde quality when it comes to control. In his first 49 appearances as a rookie in 2015, he allowed two walks per nine against eight strikeouts for a healthy 3.91 SO/W ratio.
In his first full season in 2016, he allowed 3.9 free passes per nine innings. He buoyed that with a 10.8 strikeout per nine rate, but his SO/W fell to 2.79, still a respectable number by any measure.
However, if we break up 2016 between his Washington and Pittsburgh tenures, we see a walk rate of 2.7 with the Nationals and 5.9 with the Pirates.
If we look at how Rivero approached hitters – with any pitch – on 1-1 and 2-1 counts, we see a dogged continuation of working the fringes.
2016 2-1 and 1-1 Pitches, Any Pitch Type
Image and data courtesy of Statcast
I chose these pitch counts for two simple reasons. First, these two counts in particular represent a true fulcrum, a fork in the road if you will, of how an at-bat will go. Second – and more importantly – 25 of Rivero’s 33 walks in 2016 came after 1-1 or 2-1 counts.
You often hear about a pitcher’s ability to fight back from undesirable counts. These are salvageable counts, and bringing pitches back into the zone, on the fringes could unlock another level of effectiveness for the left-hander.
When Rivero works the four corners of the strike zone, he has very encouraging results.
Image and data courtesy of Statcast
Those results – any pitch in the four corner zones at any count in the at-bat – are encouraging. Of particular note is the fact that while the ball does get put in play a bit in these areas, there is also some very strong deception going on. 31 percent of these pitches are called strikes, and 22.4 percent are ill-struck resulting in fouls. This can tell us that hitters can be a bit fooled by Rivero’s offerings, deciding late or being frozen completely.
The true level of deception in Rivero’s use of the corner zones can be somewhat open to interpretation, but what cannot be ignored is that only 6.5 percent – just 15 total pitches – of these offerings land for balls.
With that fact in hand, Rivero can do a much better job of “battling back” from 1-1 and 2-1 counts – in fact, any count that he is behind in – if he brings things back into the zone just a bit.
The Pittsburgh Pirates will trust Felipe Rivero with some very big outs in 2016 and beyond. Though rough around the edges as many young pitchers are, it is those very edges of the strike zone that can help him smooth over those rough patches.
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